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Wednesday, 8 February 2017

What about the others?

With the declaration that Israel
is going ahead to build in the major settlement blocks in Judea & Samaria
that, according to all understandings, are located in areas that will be an
integral part of Israel even after the hopeless notion of a permanent two-state
solution, the United Nations and particularly the European Union are up in arms
as they continue to champion the unjustified cause of their adopted poster
child whose illegitimate claims are being promoted as legal at the expense of
Israel’s safety and legitimacy for territory.

They push for a Palestine
paying no heed to the question of which Palestine are they spawning? Is
it the PLO Palestine, or the Hamas Palestine? Is it the Islamic Jihad Palestine
or the Salafi Palestine?

In fact, are
they aware that these are the competing factors within Palestinian society?

Do they really think that the
world will be better off by forcing into being yet another undemocratic Islamic
entity unable to function as a self-supporting and united nation onto an
already turbulent Middle East? Isn’t the region already breaking down with
failed states? Do we really need another one?

The diplomats are behaving like
surgeons trying to pry apart Siamese twins. They really do look on Israel and the troublesome Palestinians this way.

They are so eager to split these
opposing forces that they ignore the
inevitable results of their surgery that will leave a more vulnerable Israel
with a dangerous twin bent on its destruction, a biblical Cain inflicted on an
Israeli Abel in modern times.

The obsession against Israel is
solely based on two false premises. Having given credence to an Israel that is “Illegally
occupying Palestinian territory” they arrogantly assume this gives them the
rightto enforce “Palestinian rights” on to the world. They are dangerously
wrong on both counts.

They fail to realise that Palestinian
rights will not end at a 1967 line because these people will look on what is
left of Israel as the same “illegally occupied Palestinian territory.” Palestinian leaders say so frequently to anyone who cares to listen.

They intend to impose their Palestinian
rights onto the rest of Israel and liberate Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, the Galilee
and the Negev where Israeli Arabs and the Bedouin are viewed as “Palestinians
of the Interior” waiting to be liberated from the clutches of the
colonialist Jews.

But assuming the UN and the EU
are right about condemning countries that occupy territory, and assuming they
really do champion the cause of those who claim their land is illegally
occupied, it begs us to ask what about the others.

Where is Turkey, Russia, Morocco,
China, Iraq India, Pakistan and so many other nations who are “illegally
occupying” other people’s territory?
Why is it that Israel is the exclusive target for international
reprobation?

I am inundated by Kurdish friends
who are pleading with me to lobby on their behalf for an independent Kurdistan.
This is a cause to which I have the deepest sympathy and support.

Unlike the
so-called Palestinians, they have a history and culture going back
centuries. They have been the bravest and first fighters against ISIS since
this Islamic curse forced itself on Syria, Iraq and then on Europe.

Yet the Europeans,
so quick to hit on Israel, refuse to raise their voice or a lift a finger to
help the Kurds whose lands are illegally occupied by Turkey, Iraq, Syria and
Iran.

France in particular is guilty of
gross hypocrisy. Their meddling in the Middle East a hundred years ago left
them as holders of the mandates for Syria and Lebanon, two countries in abject
meltdown today. Do they really want to force yet another failed state into the
region? Is that wise at this tumultuous time?

Compared to Kurdish claims,
Palestinian claims to Israeli territory are as solid as melting ice cream on a
hot summer’s day.

The Kurds rescued the Yazidis, fought and died fighting ISIS
with inadequate weaponry while France and the rest of the European did little
to nothing to help them. Yet, after ISIS terrorism has been allowed to
infiltrate into Europe with murderous results due to European failed policies
and bad decision-making, they still refuse to speak up for the Kurdish cause of
independence.

Clearly double standards
by Hollande and Mogherini representing France and the EU.

Israel and the Kurds are united
as fighters on the front-line of terrorism in the Middle East yet the Europeans,
particularly France, act against our cause or our claims against the terrorists
and antagonistic regional actors who mean us real harm.

Instead, against Israel they are determined to
establish a nation built on terrorism, a clear reward for violence and bad behaviour.

These diplomats think they are
acting in the cause of peace but ignore the certain knowledge that the creation
of Palestine will not result in peace. It will merely be a station on
the road to defeating a more vulnerable Jewish State.

Alternative solutions must be
considered of which there are several.

Barry
Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for
Strategic Studies.

He is the
author of a new book dealing with the hundred year old conflict - ‘1917.
From Palestine to the Land of Israel.’